Adonis (poet)
Adonis | |
|---|---|
Adonis on 12 May 2011 | |
| Native name | أدونيس |
| Born | Ali Ahmad Said Esber 1 January 1930 Al Qassabin, Latakia, Alawite State, Mandatory Syria |
| Pen name | Adonis |
| Occupation | Poet, writer, literary critic, editor |
| Language | Arabic |
| Alma mater | Damascus University Saint Joseph University of Beirut |
| Period | Contemporary |
| Genres | Essays, poetry |
| Literary movement | Modernism, avant-garde, surrealism |
| Notable works | The Songs of Mihyar the Damascene, The Static and the Dynamic |
| Notable awards | Bjørnson Prize 2007 Goethe Prize 2011 |
Ali Ahmad Said Esber (Arabic: علي أحمد سعيد إسبر, North Levantine Arabic: [ˈʕali ˈʔaħmad saˈʕiːd ˈʔesbeɾ]; born 1 January 1930), also known by the pen name Adonis or Adunis (أدونيس [ʔadoːˈniːs]), is a Syrian poet, essayist and translator. Maya Jaggi, writing for The Guardian stated "He led a modernist revolution in the second half of the 20th century, "exerting a seismic influence" on Arabic poetry comparable to T.S. Eliot's in the anglophone world."
Adonis's publications include twenty volumes of poetry and thirteen of criticism. His dozen books of translation to Arabic include the poetry of Saint-John Perse and Yves Bonnefoy, and the first complete Arabic translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (2002). His multi-volume anthology of Arabic poetry ("Dīwān ash-shi'r al-'arabī"), covering almost two millennia of verse, has been in print since its publication in 1964.
A perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Adonis has been described as the greatest living poet of the Arab world.